9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Identifying with Cress, July 13, 2001
I plan to read Cress Delahanty to my daughter when she's about 10 or 11. The author, Jessamyn West, has captured the "evanescent" (one of Cress's favorite words) nature of a young girl's personality as she is growing up. The book is a collection of stories about a girl between the ages of 11 and 17 who lives on a ranch in Southern California. Each chapter entrances the reader with Cress's shenanigans. You think she is doing something outlandish or brave; you think the story is going one way, and then you get a view into the workings of Cress's mind and you suddenly understand what she's doing and the story goes in a different direction. As an adolescent I loved Cress because she was me, in all her insecurity, feats of boldness, crass humanity and growing understanding of boys, friends, family and relationships.
The last chapter transcends all and always makes me cry.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A touching, real view of growing up as a girl, April 14, 2000
Jesamyn West gives us a character in Crescent Delahanty that is so real you think she just might have been your friend when you were thirteen. Cres, as she is called in the book represents the struggles for peer acceptance and young love that any young woman can relate to. West's acute attention to the details of Cres's external environment (growing up on a ranch) and the other characters who impact on Cres's life deserves applause.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Children do not..., September 11, 2007
This review is from: Cress Delahanty (Contemporary Classics by Women) (Paperback)
When I was in sixth grade, the St. Louis Public Library still had a branch in the basement of our school, and it was there, in the "junior fiction" department, that I discovered Cress Delahanty, Jessamyn West's soon-to-be-teen girl, growing up on her family's citrus ranch. Ms. West created a character that appealed to my--shall we say androgynous?--self-image. Cress was more like me than anybody I knew: she was more like a boy in some ways, and yet more like a girl in others, and like me she seemed to have problems defining the lines between the two. Her father was the sage that advised her through much of her growing up--and he seemed to me to be the kind of man I would like to be when I got there.
The thing I remember most, though, about Cress is her lovely poem:
Once I was young and had dreams
Now I am old and have children.
Dreams are evanescent; dreams fade:
Children do not.
But then again,
You do not have to wipe the noses of your dreams.
If that's not quite correct, it's because I haven't seen the book in over forty years, but I think I'm close to right. And indeed, one does not have to wipe the noses of one's dreams.
I think about Cress from time to time, and most recently as I write this: for me in some not exclusive way she reminds me of what I thought growing up should be about, and how I thought I should react to it. I think I must read this one again.
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